Two high school friends from regional Western Australia meet up, sharing stories of their day.
One thing leads to another and Dave House and Henry Carrington-Jones start playing music together, working on tunes in their downtime, before making the decision to convert an old stable on Henry’s parents property to a rehearsal space.
Blood, sweat and a couple of bevs later, the boys, with a country allure, had formed Old Mervs and doubled down on daily sessions in the sweaty barn.
These formative years would prove fundamental to the band and their debut EP Get Better, cutting their teeth in the mellow surroundings, before diving headfirst into shows across Western Australia, as well as the Sunshine Coast.
For the two lads, Get Better is a memorandum of self-reflection; bringing to life the emotions felt post-high school, when you’re forced to reflect, more deeply than ever, on who you want to be and where you’d like to go.
Realising their calling was not monotony the duo had found themselves in, they crafted Get Better in cathartic writing sessions that drew daily confirmations of just where they needed to be: writing tunes, in their barn, with the sun setting in the distance.
Henry Carrington-Jones of Old Mervs said, “The EP explores a few things, but the main one is self reflection.“
“The whole theme is quite varying, but we chose Get Better as the title because it can be interpreted in a few ways, with it having a double meaning.
“A big one for us is it being a step up in songwriting and production, so in a basic sense getting better, but then also mentally in a self reflection form trying to get better. Interpret it how you will but this is why we chose it as a title track.”
Title track Get Better accentuates the themes running throughout Old Merv’s EP.
Dave House sings of hour-long car rides out from their home in regional Western Australia, questioning where his life is headed and his next move, with the windows cranked down and the air thick with heat.
An ode to mindful self-improvement, whether stumbling forward or figuring it out as you go.
“This EP is pretty much a self reflection and just touches on basic things people seem to feel and go through in their early 20s,“ Dave said.
“The song Get Better, for example, is about feeling very overwhelmed with what you’re currently investing your time with.
“For me it was the work I was doing and the confusion of how much I loved it but also how much it was pissing me off.
“I’m really happy with how the EP sounds, we went for a more produced style while still capturing the raw sounds and emotion that have shaped our songwriting.”
Working with the iconic Dave Parkin (Spacey Jane, Tired Lion) at Blackbird Sound Studio in Perth, the band was able to spend two weeks crafting the EP from a multitude of demos, to the final body of work heard today.
Building a friendship with the band throughout the process, Parkin added final 10 per cent of expertise, to polish off the tracks, before sending them to Grammy Award winning engineer William Bowden (Empire of The Sun, The Church) for mixing and mastering.
“We went with Parko at Blackbird, because we had heard his past work and the detail in the production and mixing,“ Henry said.
“In the past we had difficulties songwriting in the form of a two piece, we spent two days doing scratch tracks and tweaking the songs in the studio and this added that last 10 per cent we were really chasing previously.”
Leading the surf-rock renaissance, Old Mervs’ relaxed and gracious demeanours belies the rapid success the band have achieved in the space of 18 months; hitting more than 5 million streams, single Cellophone tracking over 2.1 million streams, signing to prestigious Australian label Dew Process, sharing stages and touring with Liam Gallagher, The Wombats, Spacey Jane, Death By Denim, and The Dreggs.
Connecting with their rapidly emerging fanbase on more than just the stage, Old Mervs have seen their clothing line – influenced by skate, street and surf culture – continue to fly off the merch table, with the band shaping the culture zeitgeist of their audience.
Broadly influenced by Sam Fender, The Strokes and Catfish and The Bottlemen, the two-piece from Kojonup, WA are swiftly transitioning from “the biggest band you’ve never heard” to frontrunners for the title of Australian surf-rock darlings.
With a BIGSOUND 2022 showcase slot in the back pocket, as well as a management deal under Sidequest (Sly Withers) it is only a matter of time before Old Mervs are a name on punters lips, shaping fans wardrobes, filling festival stages and soundtracking the afternoons of listeners globally.
